How to stop the puppy from leaping over the fence

[Gwyndolyn Morasko]

Brand new problem for 18 month old puppy.  My puppy got all excited to see a new lab visiting my next door neighbor, and figured out how to launch herself from a pile of furniture covered by a tarp up and over the 5 foot fence to play with the 3 year old lab next door.  Even after placing upside down chairs on top of it, she still managed to do it two more times that day (2 days ago).  So yesterday I spent hours sorting and moving the whole pile so that there was no longer anything from which she could launch.

My heart sank this morning when i let her out to potty and I saw her sitting by the 5 foot tall cinder block fence and looking up hopefully.  I called her to come and went towards her, but one second later she had launched her self from a total dead sitting position over the top of the fence.  I caught her as the front half of her body was already over the fence and her back toes were grabbing on my side of the fence to push the rest of the way.  WOW!!!!  I knew she was athletic, but this is crazy.  She is less than 18 inches tall and 29 pounds.  WOW.  

So.....her trainer suggested putting out a few dozen tiny tiny mouse traps along that fence top.  They would be too small to hurt (I doubt it) but loud and scary enough to deter her.  I'm open to other methods of getting her to stop doing this and to get her to even forget that she knows how!!!  (She didn't know for the previous year with me!)

[Brittney & Cally]

If all else fails you can try something like this! It is really for cats but if nothing else works you could try it. http://store.purrfectfence.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=KIT-C... That's incredible that she can jump that high!

[Deborah Brown]

Oh, wow!  My Penny can catapult herself straight up in the air reaching 6-7 feet but she is a bigger dog.  Luckily she hasn't tried to scale our 6' wood fence.  I have, however, seen her jump up on walks to see over other people's fences.

So your pup is extremely determined.  I don't like the idea of adversives (mouse traps) on the fence but I understand that you need to keep her safe and contained.  Can you add a second fence?  Maybe you have some landscape fencing?  If you put another fence 4' in from the cinder block fence, she will have a harder time.  She also might not be able to detect the other dog on the other side.  I'd also not let her out be herself for now.  It's possible over time that she will lose interest, especially if the lab is only visiting.

Info about double fencing:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6e7yDa66ok

Long term, it will take some counter conditioning for her to ignore dogs on the other side of the fence.  I wish I had a good and simple solution.  Looking forward to what others suggest.

[Adina P]

Another option that I've seen: http://www.coyoteroller.com/

[Deborah Brown]

This is interesting!